Recently, my wife and I bought new blankets: velvety, dark-blue ones in an attractive package. We brought the parcel home and attacked its wrapping, tearing interminably through layers of cardboard and plastic—a process not unlike breaking into Fort Knox. Eventually, after enduring paper cuts, breaking a fingernail or two and filling a trash barrel to the brim, we liberated the blankets from imprisonment. We then ran them through our washer and dryer—to cleanse them of debris and cooties.
My blanket fit the bed well, and for a few nights I slept pleasantly, reclining under a warm, comfortable cloud. (What a stupid metaphor; clouds are cold and damp.) At first, I paid little attention when making the bed, but gradually noticed that each morning the blanket would offer a souvenir: a furry little ball about the size of a BB.
It meant only one thing: The blanket was molting!
I knew if the process continued, my bed might someday resemble a buffalo (American bison) after winter fur starts to slough off the beast—an ugly prospect to consider, no?
Now, in my younger days, I paid no heed to bedding behavior or misbehavior, having more important things to do under the covers. Now that I am wise and all-knowing, I take a scientific interest. (Not that I am old, but I do admit to single-handedly keeping the medical profession solvent.)
Blankets, I discovered, recognize only two seasons of the year: too hot and too cold. In hot season, I awaken to a contorted blanket, a combination twisted towel and coiled snake. In cold season, I enter the bed expecting, hoping, to snuggle under warm covers, instead find myself slipping between two glaciers. The blanket and its accomplices—the sheets—expect me warm them up. It’s hard to tell which of us shivers the most.
As day by day, my blanket discards what it must consider useless fuzz, I hypothesize how molting will end. Setting aside my ugly buffalo analogy, which is, after all, a mere waypoint in blanket evolution, I wonder if the thing will eventually reduce itself to a skeletal remnant—the underlying crux of a blanket, if such a bony underpinning exists.
On the other hand, maybe it will shed itself into happy oblivion. That is my favorite hypothesis: I picture the blanket, having served its time on Earth, disappearing entirely, its spirit ascending into some sort of Valhalla reserved for worthy blankets, leaving nothing behind but warm memories.
Note: Those of you experienced in swine laundering will recognize this testament for what it is: namely hogwash.
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